Archive for the ‘Discussion’ Category

A lot has changed since RAIL was launched in December of 2009. I can’t believe it has

Review, revise, keep rolling!

been almost a decade! With a little extra time on my hands I’ve been doing some thinking about how RAIL can best serve the argumentation and critical thinking research communities going forward.

One of the most important changes is that I’m working on strengthening the critical thinking side of RAIL. To that end I’ve recently launched the Critical Thinking Research Gateway, a page of links and research starters to help researchers find current work on critical thinking across the disciplines. I will also be looking to run more critical thinking-oriented content. That doesn’t mean that argumentation will no longer be featured on RAIL, however. The RAIL Resources page, as well as the Study Argumentation and People pages are still active and will remain so. (If you or your program is listed there, you could help by reviewing the information that’s there and making sure it’s accurate.)

What’s not there anymore is the ArgEvents Calendar. In the early days of RAIL there weren’t many other common places online where it was easy to get the word out about conferences and symposia in argumentation, apart from a couple of listservs. There are now thriving communities for argumentation across the web, including LinkedIn and Facebook, where this information is shared–more often than not by the organizers themselves. The number of events–especially regularly recurring events–has grown exponentially too. This is an awesome development! It is however, also one that makes it hard for one person to keep up with. For this reason, although CFPs are most welcome and will still be posted at RAIL, I’m letting go of the attempt to keep a comprehensive calendar of argumentation-related events going.

One thing I’m considering adding is a page devoted to job postings (PhD studentships, research positions, and faculty positions) where critical thinking or argumentation are central to the work to be done. I’m curious to know what the community thinks. Is this a good idea or are folks happy to use other means to find candidates/positions for academic work in argumentation and critical thinking? Post here in the comments or drop me a line at railargumentation[at]gmail.com and let me know. As always, comments and suggestions for how to improve RAIL are more than welcome!

The Phenomenon

The “fake news” phenomenon plays on highly predictable and prevalent weaknesses in human cognition: confirmation bias, ownership/endowment effects, and belief overkill using messages with high affective valence, usually negative. Emotions of fear, outrage, and suspicion typically are featured, but sometimes positive themes are used too, like appeals to feelings of patriotism or nostalgia for an idealized past. The images selected typically reflect whatever the emotional focus is, or whoever (or whatever, in the case of abstract institutions) is the target of that focus. There is no attempt at truthful communication. Sources are often described rather than named (think pizzagate’s “New York City police detective”, or phrases like “sources close to the Trump family”). Essentially, fake news stories follow the same sort of style as tabloid writing: sensationalistic, unverifiable, and over-the-top claims are made about publicly recognizable figures for money. That’s nothing new. Tabloid journalism has been around since papers started being printed. What’s “new” about fake news is that: (more…)

School has started again. For some of us academics, this means shifting from reading professional literature to papers written by absolute beginners. Over the years this can wear on you, especially since you’ll encounter the same moves over and over and over. The sheer repetitiveness of it will cause you to ask whether you’re having any effect at all on their work. If you’re smart, you’ll vent about it to your trusted colleagues in the friendly confines of the faculty lounge. They will commiserate with you, and hopefully remind you of your obligations as a teacher. After a scotch or two and some quality time in a chesterfield chair, you’ll return to class refreshed, or maybe a bit buzzed, but nonetheless ready to do whatever it is you do.

Should you lack good mentors or quality whisky, you may be tempted to go online with a post about how stupid the kids are. Before you do this, you need to remind yourself of three critical things…

Some scientists perceive themselves as an embattled minority, fending off attacks from a public whose declining trust in science has been manufactured by self-interested adversaries aided by an easily-duped press. This perception is largely unfounded. When scientists communicate to the public from this point of view, they don’t contribute usefully to public deliberations. In fact, they add more toxins to the already polluted science communication environment. There has to be a better way.

As readers of this site are no doubt aware, CRRAR runs a schedule of seminars, colloquia, and argumentation- and informal logic-related events throughout the year. As can be seen from the schedule for Winter, these feature leading argumentation scholars from programs from around the world as well as speakers from CRRAR itself. The discussions are always lively! Hope to see you there!

Many of us working in argumentation theory have an interest in disagreement. Indeed, discussion of so-called “deep disagreement” (per Fogelin) is practically a cottage industry in our field. Recently, professional philosophy has circled around to the topic of disagreement too and spawned it’s own cottage industry on the subject: discussion of the epistemology of disagreement.

In the interest of pushing the argumentation research circle on disagreement further towards the philosophical research circle on disagreement, in the hopes of achieving a Venn diagram of research with a healthy intersection between the two, I offer the following in addition to the above link to Harvey’s paper:

Secondly, there’s this more recent item of interest from the NewAPPS blog. The piece gives the results of a recent survey of philosophers’ attitudes towards religion. It specifically addresses the question of how philosophers recognize epistemic peers across religious boundaries.

It seems to me that in this (and in other areas) mainstream philosophy and argumentation theory could benefit from making each others’ mutual acquaintance. What do you think?